Slain Robbery Suspect Was Unarmed : D.A. to Determine if Man Who Shot 15-Year-Old Is to Be Charged

The two youths suspected of stealing car parts at a Costa Mesa auto repair shop were not armed when a man shot and killed one of them Wednesday as they tried to flee, police said Thursday.

Spokesmen for the Costa Mesa Police Department and the Orange County district attorney’s office refused to identify the dead youth, a 15-year-old Costa Mesa resident, or the 30-year-old man who shot him in the head as he attempted to flee Holtz VW Repair at 12:06 a.m. Wednesday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard King, who will review the Police Department’s evidence and determine whether criminal charges should be filed against the man, cited a California government code that allows law enforcement officers to withhold the name of a suspect or victim if it will jeopardize the person’s safety or the completion of a criminal investigation. He would not elaborate.

But before police were instructed by King not to release either name, Costa Mesa Police Lt. Rick Johnson said he did not believe that identifying the dead boy would “ultimately” jeopardize the investigation.

No Weapons Found

Johnson said no weapons were found in the blue Volkswagen the youths were in when the unidentified man fired a shotgun at them. One youth, who was driving the car when the shot was fired, was wounded in the head and died at 1:30 a.m. at a Newport Beach hospital.

The second youth was detained by the man, who called 911 and reported that he had just shot someone outside the repair shop in the 700 block of West 20th Street, police said. Officers arrested the second boy on suspicion of auto theft and booked him into Orange County Juvenile Hall.

The uninjured youth’s name was withheld because he is a juvenile.

Lug nuts from a white Porsche parked outside Holtz VW were found in the Volkswagen with the youths, Johnson said. He said a lug-nut wrench, a floor jack and blocks of wood also were discovered in the car when officers bearing a warrant searched it.

Johnson, who is directing the police investigation, said Wednesday that the youths were in the process of “committing grand theft of Porsche wheels and tires from a vehicle in the parking lot of Holtz VW when the informant first saw them and attempted to make contact.”

He said the youths “hopped in a car, and that’s when (the unidentified man) made his contact with them and a shot was fired from the shotgun.”

Johnson said a relative of the dead youth is the registered owner of the Volkswagen but refused to identify the family member.

He would not release the address of the dead boy but said “he would have attended Estancia High School--if he attended school, and that, I don’t know.”